{"id":31166,"date":"2011-08-18T07:49:18","date_gmt":"2011-08-18T13:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=31166"},"modified":"2011-10-20T09:58:28","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T15:58:28","slug":"prosecutor-wants-change-of-venue-in-murphy-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/08\/prosecutor-wants-change-of-venue-in-murphy-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Prosecutor wants change of venue in Murphy case"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

District Attorney Matt Chandler<\/p><\/div>\n

District Judge Mike Murphy could face trial on bribery charges somewhere other than Do\u00f1a Ana County if the case\u2019s prosecutor gets his way.<\/p>\n

Ninth Judicial District Attorney Matt Chandler, the case\u2019s special prosecutor, filed a motion<\/a> seeking change of venue on Wednesday. His reasons, according to the motion:<\/p>\n

The case has been heavily scrutinized by media including NMPolitics.net, and Murphy\u2019s booking photograph has been published by numerous outlets. There\u2019s been lots of commentary about the case on news outlets\u2019 websites.<\/p>\n

Murphy is an elected, public official in Do\u00f1a Ana County and has \u201cinteracted extensively in the community as an advocate, political figure, and a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state\u2019s witness list includes people who are well-known in the county including almost every elected judge. \u201cIt will be impossible, if not infeasible, to select an impartial panel\u201d because of the ties between \u201cwitnesses and their associates and constituents in this small county.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy\u2019s attorney has issued statements to the press about the prosecution that are negative and go beyond a claim of innocence. One in particular \u201chas the effect of undermining and manipulating public confidence in the judicial system as well as impugning the character of the prosecutor\u201d when it claims that the only intent of the latest charge against Murphy, and his arrest, were \u201cto seek to humiliate through images of incarceration for an apparent political purpose<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That newest bribery charge<\/a>, which Chandler filed late last month, alleges that Murphy offered to help defend District Judge Lisa Schultz against an investigation into an ethical complaint if she agreed to be the tie-breaking vote to make Douglas R. Driggers the chief judge in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

A magistrate judge approved Murphy\u2019s arrest, and he was booked into the Do\u00f1a Ana County Detention Center before being released on bond.<\/p>\n

Murphy is already on suspension without pay because of the other bribery case against him. In that case, Murphy is facing\u00a0felony bribery charges<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0a misdemeanor charge<\/a>\u00a0of violating the state\u2019s Governmental Conduct Act.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors\u00a0allege in that case that Murphy solicited a bribe<\/a> from potential judicial applicant Beverly Singleman, told District Judge Lisa Schultz to tell Singleman she needed to pay the bribe, and threatened to destroy Singleman\u2019s reputation for telling others that he solicited a bribe from her.<\/p>\n

Murphy has\u00a0pleaded not guilty<\/a>. His trial is\u00a0scheduled to start Oct. 31<\/a>, but his attorney is\u00a0seeking dismissal of the charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chandler intends to join the two cases, so Murphy could face trial on all charges at once.<\/p>\n

A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that Murphy is charged with paying a bribe for his position.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

District Judge Mike Murphy could face trial on bribery charges somewhere other than Do\u00f1a Ana County if the case\u2019s prosecutor gets his way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,142,115,216,161,114],"class_list":["post-31166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bill-richardson","tag-crime","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-judge-murphy","tag-judiciary","tag-public-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}